This invention relates to control apparatus for controlling powered sliding members on automotive vehicles and, more particularly, to powered sliding door systems for van type vehicles having a door opening in a side wall thereof.
In van applications of the invention, a sliding door is moved generally parallel to the side wall of the van during its initial closing movement and for a major portion of its full closing movement, as well as during a major portion of its full opening movement, including its final opening movement. Typically, the sliding door moves generally coward and generally away from the plane of the door opening during a portion of respective final closing and initial opening movements, so as to be flush with the side wall when fully closed, and so as to be alongside of, and parallel to, the side wall, generally rear of the door opening, when fully opened.
In sliding door systems of the type mentioned above, upper and lower forward guide rails are attached to the top and bottom portions, respectively, of the door opening, and a rear guide rail is attached to the exterior of the side wall, at an elevation approximately midway between the elevation of the upper and lower forward guide rails. The respective forward end portions of the various guide rails are curved inwardly of the body of the van, and bracket and roller assemblies are fastened to the respective upper and lower forward ends of the sliding door, as well as to an intermediate position at the rear end of the sliding door. Such bracket and roller assemblies are slidingly supported in the guide rails to guide the door through its opening and closing movements.
Various portions of the opening and closing movements of van sliding doors have different power requirements. Thus, the initial door closing movement and a major portion of the subsequent door closing movement are high displacement/low force translational movements, during which little force is required to achieve large door movements since only frictional resistance and grade-caused gravity resistances must be overcome. Similarly, the final opening movement and a major,portion of the preceding opening movement are also high displacement/low force translational movements for the same reasons. In contrast, however, a portion of the final closing movement of the door is a low displacement/high force movement. This is because during final closing, an elastomeric weather seal surrounding the door opening must be compressed, and an unlatched latch bolt on the door must engage and be rotated to a latched position by a striker pin at the rear of the van body door opening. During manual operation, sliding van doors are typically moved with great momentum through their entire closing movements in order to assure full weather strip compression and latch bolt operation at the end of such movement.
Various powered van door systems have been developed in the past, including those described in the above-mentioned related United States Patents. Another such system is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,729, issued to Sato. In the Sato patent, a motor driven pinion carried by the lower front bracket and roller assembly of the door cooperates with a rack gear carried by the lower front guide rail in the door opening to move the door between its fully open and fully closed positions. In this arrangement, as in the case of the manual door operation discussed above, a high momentum is still required during the entire closing movement.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,757, issued to Kagiyama et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,050, issued to Yamagishi et al, also represents additional examples of powered van door systems. The systems employ cable drives coupled to the lower front bracket and roller assemblies of the doors for opening and closing movements. However, these systems also rely on high momentum during the entire closing movement.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,185, issued to Shibuki et al, describes still another powered van door system. In this system, a friction wheel engages the bottom portion of the door and drives the door through the major portions of its opening and closing movements parallel to the side wall of the van. Turntable arms are pivotably connected end-to-end between the friction wheel and the floor of the door opening and draw the rear of the door inwardly to compress the weather strip. While this prior art design appears to operate with lower momentum forces during closing movement than those discussed above, it requires a complicated, costly mechanism that is difficult to install and difficult to repair in the event of a breakdown. Moreover, retrofitting this mechanism to a vehicle not originally equipped with a powered door system would be inordinately difficult.
In addition to the foregoing prior art systems, final closing devices or clamping mechanisms for powering the final, low-displacement/high-force movement of sliding van doors have been developed by the assignee of the present invention and are described in the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,775,178 and 4,842,313, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein. In each of these systems, the door includes a latch bolt member moveable between latched and unlatched positions, as well as a handle or a lock member movable between open and closed positions. The final closing device or clamping mechanisms each includes a striker support plate mounted on the vehicle body at the rear of the door opening for rotational movement about a perpendicular axis, a striker pin projecting from the striker support plate at a position offset from the axis, and means carried by the vehicle body for rotating the striker support plate. The striker pin is movable between extended and retracted positions so that when the striker pin is engaged by the latch member bolt, the striker support plate is rotated, and the sliding door is moved between a partially open position away from the door opening and a fully closed position. In addition to disclosing the foregoing structure, U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,313 also discloses a crashworthiness feature that adds a pawl and ratchet mechanism to prevent the striker support plate from being reversely rotated in response to high door opening forces from the inside of the vehicle.
Although U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,775,178 and 4,842,313 illustrate excellent final closing systems for sliding van doors, they do not include provisions for powering van doors through the major portions of opening and closing movements, nor do they include provisions for powering van doors during late closing movements to the point where the latch bolt mechanisms engage with, and close about, the striker pins of the clamping mechanisms.
Improved powered sliding door operator systems for van type vehicles are disclosed in the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,640, with the disclosed systems having provisions (i) for powering sliding van doors through the major portions of opening and closing movements, (ii) for powering sliding van doors during late closing movements to engage the latch bolt mechanisms with the striker pins, and (iii) for finally clamping sliding van doors to a fully closed position. In such patent, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, the door is supported adjacent its forward end by forward brackets slidable in upper and lower forward guide members carried by the vehicle body, and is supported adjacent its rear end by a rear bracket slidable in a mid-level rear guide member carried on the outside of the vehicle side panel. Motor driven cable members are attached to the rear bracket and supported adjacent opposite ends of the rear guide member and are employed to move the door through its opening movement, through its initial closing movement, and through an initial portion of its final closing movement. The final portion of its closing movement is accomplished using a final clamping mechanism of the type disclosed in the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,313.
In the three related applications filed on the same even date with the present application, there are disclosed various aspects of an improved power sliding door operator system for van type vehicles in which the sliding door moved with low momentum between its fully open position and nearly closed position, and which completely closed the sliding door in a controlled manner.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide control systems and control circuitry for operating the power door sliding systems of the type disclosed in the copending patent applications, which are generally described in pertinent part herein.
Another object of this invention is to provide a control system for a powered sliding door which employs a wireless communications link between the sliding door and the body portion of the vehicle, thus eliminating the need to provide a retractable electrical cable extending between the sliding door and body.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reliable, low-power wireless communications system for sending control signals between control circuitry resident in the sliding door and a control circuitry resident in the bodied portion of the vehicle.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide improved control strategies and methods for handling a variety of situations encountered in operating a power sliding door system, including establishing hierarchies of functions to be carried out by the power equipment employed in such sliding door operating systems.
In accordance with a first aspect of a first exemplary embodiment of the invention, a control system is provided for a sliding power-operated member, such as a side door, mounted to a body portion of a self-propelled motor vehicle, such as a van. The control system comprises: first wireless communication means, mounted on the body portion of the vehicle, for transmitting through space to the sliding member a first communications signal containing information relating to at least a first control signal for controlling a first function associated with the sliding member; and second wireless communication means, mounted on the sliding member, for receiving from space the first communications signal and obtaining therefrom the control signal. The control system further comprises means, mounted on the sliding member, for performing a predetermined function associated with a first power operation of the sliding member in response to the obtained first control signal. The first control signal may be an unlock request and the power operation may be an unlocking of a lock associated with the sliding member. Alternatively, the first control signal maybe an unlatch request and the power operation may be an unlatching of a mechanical latch associated with the sliding member. In addition to the first and second wireless communications means, third and fourth wireless communications means may be provided to establish bidirectional communications between the portion of the control system on the sliding member and the portion of the control system on the body portion of the vehicle. The wireless communications means preferably employ radio frequency signals having a frequency in the hundreds of Megahertz. One suitable implementation for the communications means includes a pair of super-regenerative amplifiers, with one such amplifier being located on the sliding member and the other being located on the body portion of the vehicle.
According to a second aspect of the first embodiment of the invention there is a provided a control system for a power-operated movable member slidably mounted to a body portion of a self-propelled vehicle. This control system comprises first and second bidirectional wireless communications means, respectively mounted on the body portion of the vehicle and the movable member, for transmitting and receiving through space communication signals containing information related to a plurality of control signals for controlling a plurality of functions associated with the movable member. In this control system, two-way communications are established, and the control system includes at least first and second electrically-powered actuator means, respectively mounted on the body portion and the sliding member, for respectively performing at least first and second ones of the plurality of functions associated with the power operation of the sliding member in response to information obtained in the communication signals.
In accordance with a third aspect of the first embodiment of the present invention, there is provided, in a control system for operating a sliding power-operated door movable along a predetermined path of travel between a closed position and a fully open position, control circuitry within the sliding door for operating electrically-powered equipment within the door. This control circuitry comprises: control logic means for locally controlling the operation of the electrically-powered equipment within the sliding door; and battery means for storing electrical power required to run the control logic means and the electrically-powered equipment within the sliding door when the door is not in its closed position. By using such a battery means, this control circuitry remains active when the door is in a position between its closed position and its fully open position, without the use of electrical cables extending between the door and the body. The battery used for storing electrical power may be recharged when the door is in its fully closed position through two sets of electrical contacts, one set on the door and the other set on the body, which are in physical contact and provide a direct electrical connection when the door is in its closed position. The electrically controlled equipment within the door may include a first power device, such as an electric motor or solenoid, for locking and unlocking the sliding door, and a second power device, such as an electric motor or solenoid, for moving the mechanism within the door which unlatches the sliding door. The control logic means within the control circuitry preferably includes means for starting the electric motors, and for monitoring the status of the mechanisms being controlled by the electric motors. The control logic means acts on a local basis to determine whether to and when to respond to requests received from the body section over the wireless communication system.
A second embodiment of the present invention provides a simpler power sliding door control system which utilizes neither a wireless communication system nor a retractable electric cable extending between the sliding door and the body. Nevertheless, this control system does enable the sliding door to be closed from a remote location, such as the driver's console under power provided by the automatic door operating equipment. Further, the control system can be provided with an obstruction detection capability which will cause the door to reverse and move to its full open position in the event that the door meets an obstruction during the closing cycle. This control system also allows power operation of the door locks and unlatch function when the door is in its closed position. This control system for operating the sliding power door comprises first and second electric actuation means mounted to the body portion of the vehicle, and third and fourth electric actuation means located within the door. The first actuation means includes electric motor and is for driving the door so that it traverses along its predetermined path of travel in either direction. The second means is for operating a low momentum door clamping mechanism for clamping the door firmly against the body portion and for releasing the door from this clamped position. The third electric actuation means is for unlatching a latch mechanism which help hold the door in place relative to the body. The fourth means is for power locking and unlocking of the door lock. In this control system, electrical connections may be provided by first and second sets of electrical contacts which make electrical and physical contact with one another when the door is in its closed position.
Additional aspects, objects, advantages, and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.